Gloves
by Unhobbity Hobbit
Summary: Sam is getting annoyed with Dean leaving fingerprints all over crimes scenes.


A/N: Anyone else think Dean's in need of some gloves? Because I think he is. Seriously, just a pair of gloves, is it so hard?

Gloves

Sam slammed something down on the table in front of Dean. Dean looked up from his newspaper, first at Sam and then down at the gloves in front of him. Black leather things, which Dean would probably like if he liked wearing gloves. He looked back up at Sam.

"They're gloves," said Sam, which, well, duh. Dean continued to look at Sam. "They're for you." Again, duh. Unless Sam was showing off his new gloves, which he wasn't, and that would be a lame way of doing it if he was, anyway. Dean stared at Sam for little longer; he didn't feel like making it easy. Sam pushed the gloves towards him. "You need gloves, man." Dean raised an eyebrow in question, Sam sighed. "If you're going to insist on touching everything at every crime scene you come across, you should at least wear gloves."

"I happen to like a hands-on approach!"

"I know you do, Dean, which is why I got you the gloves." He pushed the gloves even nearer Dean, then continued, grumbling under his breath, "God knows I can't stop you putting your hands all over everything." Dean smirked and finally put his newspaper aside. Sam sat down opposite him, sipping his coffee that he also bought while he was off getting the gloves.

"You know, I only really wear gloves when I have to." He still hadn't touched them. "Only when it's really necessary," he clarified just to be annoying.

"And leaving your fingerprints everywhere for the FBI to find doesn't strike you as a dumb thing to do?"

"They haven't found me yet!"

"Yet being the operative word in that sentence, Dean." Sam sighed and wiped a hand over his eyes. "You won't try them on, at least?" Dean stared at Sam, for no real reason other than being difficult, before finally giving in.

"Yeah, sure, I'll try them on." Dean did just that, making a big show of finding it hard to pull them on. Finally, when he got them on, he looked at his leather-clad hands and flexed them a few times. "Bit tight," was the verdict.

"They'll loosen up," Sam assured Dean.

"You think I'll wear them enough to loosen them up?" said Dean, plainly disagreeing with this line of thought.

"The amount of time you spend poking around, I wouldn't be surprised."

"Oh, like you're any quicker!" said Dean, picking up his cup of coffee before realising that he'd already finished it.

"I'm not the one that was caught leaning over the dead woman." It was probably a good thing no one else had thought it was warm enough to sit outside the cafe; this was the kind of conversation that other people might take the wrong way.

"That was just plain bad luck."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, most of our luck has been bad recently. I'd feel better if you were at least trying not to get caught."

"Where are your gloves?"

"I didn't get me any gloves."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not the one who goes around sticking fingers into demonic residue, Dean." Sam took a very pointed swig of his coffee. Sometimes Dean wondered quite how Sam managed to turn such innocent actions into accusations of stupidity.

"All right, I'll give it a try."

"You will?"

"Yes."

"You'll actually try? Not just go 'oops I left them in the car'?" Damn, that had been exactly Dean's plan.

"Yeah, I'll try," said Dean reluctantly.

The middle of the next night found them poking around another house with yellow police tape stuck across the door. First thing Sam did once they were inside was push Dean's gloves at him. He'd found them in the Impala's glove compartment (possibly the only time it had actually been used to hold gloves). Dean had obviously left them there on purpose, out of sight, so he could feign memory loss or something. Anyway, Sam wasn't going to let him get away that easily.

"You're serious about this glove thing?" Sam sighed and pushed them at Dean's chest. Dean rolled his eyes and took them, then pulled them on, trying to look as put out as possible. Somehow, Sam just couldn't find it in him to be sorry that he was annoying Dean.

A week later and they were half an hour too late and found a woman, or pieces of a woman, strewn across her apartment. After a few seconds to take in the real horror of the scene before them, Dean stepped inside. Sam grabbed the back of his jacket and pulled him back, earning a very disgruntled noise.

"Forgetting something?" said Sam. Dean stared at him, not getting the hint, so Sam glanced at Dean's hands.

"Really?"

"Yes, really." Dean leaned against the door frame.

"You want me to go down six flights of stairs, out to the car, pick up the gloves and then come back up the six flights of stairs? Just so I don't leave a fingerprint anywhere?"

"That's exactly what I want."

"Well, screw that. I'll use my shirt." And Dean did. So, after a few minutes, Sam trusted Dean enough to have a layer of shirt between his hand and whatever he was touching for Sam to go investigate a different room. The thought that he might be overestimating Dean only briefly crossed his mind.

The moment Dean called him back to show him the ectoplasm on the end of his finger, Sam got an almost overwhelming urge to bash his head against the wall. The urge to bash Dean's head against the wall was slightly stronger, but in the end he was just about able to control himself. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he painstakingly explained the concept of not touching things to his brother.

"Dude, you can't get fingerprints off ectoplasm," was Dean's reply.

"How do you know, you ever tried?"

"And who's going to check the freakin' ceiling for fingerprints anyway?"

"I don't know, Dean, but let's_ try_ not to give them anything to find if they do, okay?"

"You're getting paranoid," stated Dean with a small smile.

"I'm sorry I'd rather you didn't get caught by the FBI, but I can't really help it."

"You're worried about me, Sammy? That's sweet, really, it is." He placed a hand on Sam's shoulder in mockery. Sam sighed, not at all amused.

"Just wear the God damn gloves, Dean. It's not even like you _had _to stick your finger in the ectoplasm." Sam turned away and lead out of the apartment. "Is there something about disgusting gooey things that makes you touch them?"

"What?" said Dean, like he still didn't understand the problem. "I'm just a hands-on kinda guy!"

It took another two incidents where Dean proved that he was 'a hands-on kinda guy' whether or not there were any gloves were nearby for Sam to finally decide that he needed to up the ante. If Dean wasn't going to remember the gloves on his own, then Sam was going to make it so he wouldn't have to.

Dean came out of the bathroom still towelling his hair dry and with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.

"'Ou sheen mah rashur?" he asked. Sam spun around so quickly, and looking so carefully innocent that Dean would have suspected something if Sam was standing anywhere near his stuff. As it was, Sam was standing over his own bag and as far as Dean was concerned he could whatever he wanted with his own stuff.

"What?" Dean sighed and took the toothbrush out of his mouth. Why Sam wasn't already fluent in Dean-when-he's-brushing-his-teeth was beyond him.

"Have you seen my razor?" Sam thought for a moment before turning back to his bag and whatever he was doing.

"Yeah, I don't think you took it out of your bag last night." Sam turned out to be right. Little brothers and their big brains, always keeping track of crap like that.

The next time Dean made it out of the bathroom his hair was dry, his teeth were fully brushed and he was more or less dressed. Well, a bit less than dressed; he was still missing socks and shoes.

"What's up?" he asked Sam as he pulled his socks on. He was somewhat suspicious of the way Sam wasn't looking at him, but staring at the laptop slightly too intensely.

"Hmm?" said Sam, looking over at Dean, "Oh, nothing." But there was a definite upturn of the lips. It was a damn good thing that Sam was usually better at lying than this.

"Yeah right, nothing. What is it?"

"Why do you even think something is going on?"

"Because you're smiling!"

"So I'm not allowed to smile now?" Sammy's smile had been swapped for his bitchface and Dean put his hands up in surrender because he was dangerously close to having to deal with a pissed Sam for the rest of the day. He pulled the other sock on in silence.

"Where are we going today, then?" Sam glanced over from the laptop screen and shifted in his chair to face Dean more.

"Uh, we should check out this last guy found beheaded before the police start cleaning up," he turned the laptop around so Dean could see the article, but it wasn't anything Dean hadn't seen before, "And then have a talk with the Sanderses, see what they can tell us." Dean nodded as he laced up his boots.

"let's get going then!" Dean stood up and slipped his jacket on and then stopped. There were some things dangling from his sleeves, he could feel them flapping around. He looked down and there were a pair of mittens, one hanging from each sleeve. What the hell, Sam?

He surreptitiously tugged on one of them, very aware that Sam would be looking for his reaction and determined not to give him the satisfaction. However, that required him being able to deal with these mittens without looking like he was dealing with them and that was proving quite hard. He pulled on one mitten, but he could feel the string that attached the mittens together going up one sleeve and down the other. All the same he tried pulling on the other mitten, but to no avail. He wasn't going to manage this without letting Sam know exactly how annoying it was.

He turned to face Sam, looking as unimpressed with the situation as he could manage. Sam just sat with a small smile and watched, looking for all the world like an innocent bystander. Yeah, innocent, right.

What's this?" said Dean, waving his arm in the air and watching with distaste as the mitten flopped around.

"A mitten," said Sam, quite cheerfully.

"Yeah, I can see that. What's it doing attached to me?"

"I just thought that you were having so much trouble remembering your gloves, this way it's not a problem."

"I look ridiculous." He tried to pull both mittens at the same time, to maybe break the thread connecting them, but that just made it dig into his skin uncomfortably.

"But you won't be caught by the police."

"I'd rather have to break myself out of jail," Dean paused, trying to reach down the back of his jacket and find the string there, "Than wear these things in public. Dammit!" he gave up on finding the string and took the jacket off. He began unthreading the mittens from his jacket. "Where did you even get them?" A glance at Sam revealed him to be grinning smugly. Dean could have really done without seeing that.

Having finally extricated the mittens from his clothing, Dean balled them up at threw them at Sam. Sam caught them, laughing, and waited for Dean to get his jacket back on.

"It's mittens or gloves, dude." He held the mittens in one hand and the gloves in the other. "Your choice." Dean looked at him for a long moment before snatching the leather gloves and storming out of the room towards the car.

"You better move your ass or I'm leaving it here!" he called back. Sam grinned to himself and followed after. Sam Winchester 1, FBI 0.

The End.

Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
